Hi Blog, It's Mandee.. Do You Remember Me?

I know. I have absolutely and totally neglected my blog since my husband has been home. We have been busy busy and have been really enjoying our time together since Kevin has been home. I've also been getting slammed with bow orders. I'm not complaining! It's money for vacations! We leave for Ireland in a little over two weeks! WOOT! We're also planning on going to Austria this friday to sightsee around Salzburg. The only places left that we really want to see in Italy is Rome and Volterra. So we're working on hitting as many countries as we can. We're planning on going to Germany in July and Paris, France in August or September.

Today we went and bought Rosalie a sandbox today :) She LOVES it. It was a scavenger hunt to find sand. The BX didn't have it so we started hitting Italian stores until we found some. We spent most of the afternoon while Rosalie chilled in her turtle. She got this awesome Hello Kitty beach kit from the Italian Toy Store. It even comes in this bag on wheels with a handle. She loves it!

We've gotten back into a routine. I won't lie, I was nervous. I even told Kevin I was nervous. Rosalie and I have gotten into our own routine here and Kevin's had his own routine at the Deid. Although, I am still stuck in this "I have to do everything" mode and sometimes he has to remind me and say "hey, I can do that." or "just nudge me and I'll get up with Roey in the morning." It is nice having an extra set of hands around. After Roey goes to bed, we've been watching True Blood. I've read all of the Sookie Stackhouse Books (Well, in the process of the new 11th book right now), so I was REALLY excited to watch it. I took my birthday money and bought Season 1. I waited til Kevin got home to watch it with me. The first 2 episodes we were VERY skeptical. By like the 4th episode we got hooked. I actually went the other day and bought the second season.

Anyways.. I just wanted to post my photobook of all our homecoming pictures.

Click here to view this photo book larger

and here's one of all our pics from PA

Click here to view this photo book larger

my heart is whole again!

I've tried writing this entry three times and blogger wouldn't save it. The first three times it was just a quick entry with some pics just to say..

MY HUSBAND'S HOME!

He's in bed so I actually can sit and write.. and if blogger won't save it, i'm not going to be a happy camper. hahaha

This week has been INSANE. I cleaned and cleaned. I organized and did yardwork. Rosalie and I made a ton of posters (to hang up outside our house and 1 to take with us). We baked cookies and a cake. I don't think there was a night that I was in bed before 10 and most of the nights it was after midnight. I'm not no young pup anymore and considering I have a child that gets up around 2 and 5 again, yeah, it's exhausting.

Thursday morning I got up at 5 to start getting ready. I got Rosalie up at 6. We were out the door by 7:40. His plane was suppose to land at 8:30 at our terminal on base so I figured 20 minutes to get there would put us there half an hour early. On my way to the base I heard a phone ringing but I thought it was Rosalie's dvd player. After I realized it was my cell phone, i got sick to my stomach. The number came up unknown and they called twice. I kept waiting and waiting for them to call back but never did. I thought maybe Kevin's plane had landed early. I flew to the base. I pulled into Kevin's shop because it's right next to the terminal and there was no parking at the terminal. I looked out to the flightline and didn't see the plane. For the first time since Maniago I could breathe.

They ended up not landing until 9 so we didn't get to see them til 9:30. I had a photographer come to take pics just because of my whole camera situation. I did take the camera I bought, but I kept it in the car until after we were with Kevin.

I think that moment we were reunited was better than when we were reunited at BMT. Rosalie went to him with ease and in 5 minutes was acting like he never left.

Here's a few of the pics that I took...

Finally home!

Outside the terminal

Love this one of us!

Making a poster for Daddy!

The day before Daddy came home!

The poster I made for outside of the house up and ready the morning of.

Ro and Daddy!

I got my Daddy and I'm out of here!

The awesome Holly Heisner got tons of pics for us so another day I will put those up!

Oh and my total weightloss during the deployment.. 18.7lbs! Not too shabby I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight.. now to work on getting back to my pre-college weight. I'd have a lil more than 10 lbs to get back to that!

Yesterday morning Kevin and I booked a spontaneous trip to......

IRELAND!

I can't even describe how excited I am. He had requested a couple days of leave because we wanted to go to Garmish, Germany. Well, we got on to book the room and they don't have anything available at Edelweiss until July. It looks like we'll be going in July instead! Kevin's going to see if he can get leave the week of the 4th and we're going to go for a few days. I was pretty bummed, so I thought maybe we could do one of our other big summer trips we have planned. We're also planning Rome and Paris. Well I started pricing Paris. We had originally planned to go in August. After pricing, it's so much cheaper to go in August so that's where that trip will stay. I've always wanted to go to Ireland, so out of curiosity I started pricing plane tickets. It cost just as much to go to Ireland as Rome! I asked Kevin what he thought and he said book it! So the hotel, flight, and car all booked! I'm pumped! We're only going for a few days. We're leaving on Weds morning and have all day Weds and then have all day Thursday and then leave Friday morning. I think Weds after we get there and check in we're going to head into Dublin and take a bus tour that I found. It makes stops at Trinity College, the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin Castle, St Patrick's Cathedral, Kilmainham Gaol and the Old Jameson Distillery. I also want to see Trim Castle, where Braveheart was filmed. The 2nd day we're going to drive the coast and just see the countryside, which is what I really want to see! We're staying in Dun Laoghaire, which is right outside of Dublin. I didn't want to stay right in the city and this hotel we're staying at is awesome!

Well I guess I should get some stuff done before my husband gets up! Ciao!

If you're reading this....

Then you know I've gone private!

It has been one ROUGH week. As you may have read, Rosalie broke my camera, which I have yet to replace. When you use a camera as much as I do, it totally sucks not having one. I brought down a digital camera, circa 2005 lol, that is terrible. I dug it out of the attic just to get some pics of my new bows.. but boy it's terrible. It's all blurry and grainy and it takes me like 100 tries to get a "good" pic. I will be buying my new one this week.

Then the bad luck keeps trailing me. Last night I got a Diet Dr Pepper out of the fridge. I sat down at the computer, cracked it open, and took one sip, when the kitchen timer went off. I went out to the kitchen, pulled Rosalie's dinner out of the oven, cut her chicken to cool, and went back into the livingroom. Maybe 2 minutes had lapsed? Not even. What do I find? I find Rosalie standing on the computer chair, holding the crunched Diet Dr Pepper can in her hand. Soda is rolling off the computer desk. There was a puddle on the floor, it was dripping from the chair, and worse, it was just running off our Macbook. I just about cried. I flew over to Rosalie and took her down from the chair. I turned the computer over to let any soda run out. I kept it turned on it's side for awhile to let the soda drain out. I tried to take it apart to clean the inside out, but the screws are very tiny and we didn't have a screwdriver small enough. I tried to turn it back on. Nothing. I was sick to my stomach. Our computer isn't even 2 years old.. but it is in mint condition. We vowed when we bought it that we weren't going to download anything on it or store anything on it. I remembered reading a friend's status the other day how her cell phone went through the washer and she had it in rice. A lot of people commented on it and said that worked for them. I figured a computer, a cellphone, what's the difference lol. I took the battery out and put it in a bread pan and completely covered it in rice. I then took the actual laptop and put it in a baking sheet completely covered in rice. I got up this morning and it booted up! At first it ran slow and ran loud. After being on it for 5 minutes it shut down. I thought "Welp, it's done." I turned it back on and booted up just fine and ran fine! It's been running since 7:30 this morning with no glitches. It may hold for a day.. a week.. a month.. or a few years... I don't know.

I thought my luck turned around. Guess what... I thought wrong. Naturally, my bad luck only got worse. I was downstairs when I heard this bang upstairs. I knew what it was.. it was the sound of the toilet lid falling. I mean come on, you can recognize that sound. When I went back upstairs to finish cleaning, I lifted the toilet lid to clean it and the top of the bowl was cracked. Not no tiny crack.. a bigggg crack. I thought "You HAVE to be kidding me." I called my Dad to see if there was a way that I could temporarily fix it.. not even fix it, just something to hold it so it doesn't crack any further. He said that when it cracks, it's done. There's nothing fixing it. So now I have to call housing tomorrow. I'm dreading it. 1. I don't know if they are going to make me pay for it. Usually housing fixes or replaces things at no charge.. but is the toilet going to be considered aged and it just happened because it was old.. or are they going to say it was something I did and have to pay. Ugh I don't wanna think about it. 2. It's unbelievably hard to get through to maintenance for housing. 3. An Italian is going to have to come to my house ... track all through my house... and destroy my clean bathroom. Man my luck seriously sucks lately.

On another note, it has rained nonstop here. The clouds actually cleared today and the mountains have snow them! WTF it's May!

What are you doing here?

Are you a friend or family member? How about someone that just came across my blog and enjoys reading it? Or are you someone that is only coming to my blog to take things from it to make fun of me on facebook? Well if you fall into the last category, then I have 2 things to say to you. 1. How unbelievably immature are you? You may think it makes you sound cool and funny.. but other people see it and they think how childish you are. 2. You're going to have to look else where for your material because my blog is going oh so private. If you hate me so much WHY are you coming to my blog and reading about our day to day lives? Congrats. I'm awarding you the Stalker-of-the-Year medal.

To the friends and family and people that enjoy reading my blog, please send me your e-mail address so I can invite you to read my blog. I'll leave it open for a few more days, but then i'll be going private. Either comment on here with your e-mail, shoot me a message on facebook, or e-mail me (mandeejhollis@gmail.com).

To those stalking my blog for gag material, you only have a few more days.. so read over as many entries as you possible can, write things down, do what you have to do because your access will be denied. At that point you'll need to find a new hobby. Here's a suggestion: Get A Life.

I did not want to make my blog private.. but I'm not going to tolerate people taking things I say and then making a joke on facebook for everyone but me to see. Even though I can't see it, there are people out there that think you are childish and will tell me.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend :)

Oh camera, how I loved you.

Yesterday truly was a terrible day for me. Right off the bat, the day started off terrible and it just went from there. First thing in the morning, Rosalie broke my camera. Yes, my wonderful ultra-zoom camera. I was devastated. I know.. it's a materialistic item., but that camera is constantly glued to my hand. For like the past 10 years I have gotten a new digital camera just about every year. This one was my all time favorite. At this point, the only cameras we have are the good one (which is no longer functional), a Nikon that my gram found in a parking lot, and an old digital that you have to hold the memory card in to get it to work. I love the Nikon that my gram gave us, but the problem with it is we don't have a battery charger for it and I was using a charger of my moms, but I sent it back to her. So when the last of the batteries die, then I won't be able to charge it.. and I've had a hard time trying to find a charger for it because it's an old camera. The camera is also in Qatar with my husband.

I went to the BX in hopes they would have something that I liked in the price range that I had set. After having an ultra-zoom camera, I'm not going back to a slim digital camera. It may be bulky, but I LOVE my camera. I'd kill for a DSLR camera, but with trips planned to Germany, Rome, and Paris this summer, a $800 camera just isn't in our budget. So I hit up the BX and all they have are are regular digital cameras, $1000 DSLR cameras, and ONE camera that is the same style as mine. The one I found that was similar to mine was a Nikon and it was $100 more than I wanted to spend. I seriously just about started crying in the middle of the BX. All I could think standing there in the BX was "My husband is coming home. For the first time in months we're all going to be reunited and I don't have an effin camera." If I would order one there's NO way it would make it here before Kevin arrives because our mail is literally snail mail. Every time I order something on crunch time, it never makes it.

I left the BX feeling so down. If you saw me, then you know that I was in a serious funk and absolutely not myself. I was so mopey the entire day. Well this morning Kevin gave me the okay to get the Nikon so that funk has lifted :) haha. My luck when I go to buy it they won't have any in stock. Story of our lives living overseas.

Speaking of summer vacations.. I need some advice from you Aviano ladies. This will be our first time hitting up Germany, other than having layovers in Ramstein. We're going to probably do 3 days and the top 3 things that I absolutely want to do are the Eagle's Nest, Neuschwanstein Castle, and the Dachau Concentration Camp. My question is this.. who has done these things and how much time did you allot for each? I just trying to figure out what days of the week to go and how much stuff we can do and see. Did you do these things on your own or with Edelweiss? For Dachau did you do a guided tour or just a walk through by yourself? I have been told by multiple people to do the castle on your own and not with Edelweiss. Any tips or suggestions for the trip?

That's all for now. Ciao!

Singing the Blues Again. I Apologize.

I just wanted to share.. I absolutely love this song.. and this is exactly how I feel right now. We have a date. Yes, we have a date when we'll be a complete family again. All three of us will be in the same country... but I just feel so down. Ugh. I want my husband back.

4 months in.. 1st deployment funk.

I like to think I've done pretty well during this deployment. I've stayed positive and upbeat. I've kept up with all my housework and laundry and have done lil projects here and there. I haven't just laid and felt sorry for myself. I've kept busy with Ladybug Creations and with Ladybug herself. I've taken on dual roles of mama and papa and have done it fairly well. I've done things that I've never done before.

I get annoyed when I see a spouse, who has a deployed husband, who CONSTANTLY complains about how hard life is without her husband and how they can't keep up with anything. That was never an issue for me because when Kevin was here I NEVER did housework or laundry when he was home; well, some laundry on the weekends, but I made sure all of my housework duties were done during the day because I don't want to spend the little time that I do get to see my husband cleaning. I can't stand the "woe is me" wife who can't cope with a deployment. Yeah, it's hard. I get that. I'm there now so don't say that I don't understand because trust me, I do. But our husbands aren't the only ones that signed up for this, we did too.

So now it's my turn. I'm taking my first stab at the deployment complaining. We're almost at the finish line so you would think I'd be super duper excited, which don't get me wrong, I am beyond excited to see my husband to be a family again. As most of you know, yesterday was my birthday. It didn't feel any different because I did absolutely nothing special for my birthday and Rosalie isn't old enough to comprehend it lol. Well I was in a funk. At first I thought it was because I was being the mopey-military-wife that was sad because her husband wasn't there for her birthday. Then it hit me that it wasn't that at all. Kevin and I have spent A LOT of holidays apart. Rosalie has only slept one night since we've been home. We've been home 2 weeks and in those 2 weeks, I got sleep ONE night and have been busting my butt trying to get this place back to normal and ready for Kevin to come home. That was it. My sleep deprivation had finally caught up with me and it really had my emotions out of whack. I'm just absolutely ready to have my husband home to catch maybe a TINY TINY break!

If there was anyone that I was short, distant, or snippy at yesterday... I apologize and don't take it personally.. I was just having a bad day. Hey, we're all allowed one of those every now and then aren't we?

We still lacked sleep again last night.. but I have to get things done. I have a TON of bow orders to fill and I'm starting the spring cleaning process in my house. I cleaned for a week straight when I got back just to get this place back to normal. Now comes the process of deep cleaning.. scrubbing, dusting, and washing everything.

As I said before, we've been spending a ton of time outside.. so here's a few pics :)

bow busy :)

Today I officially opened my store back up and am starting to get swamped with orders already! I have decided that bows will only be made when Rosalie is napping or in bed for the night.. I don't want to take away any time from her, so it may take me a couple extra days to get orders out. It awesome to see the demand for my bows! Thanks to all of you ladies for all your support and for the business to make this deployment fly!

Other news... well, that's really about it. We've been working our butts off trying to get this house back to norm and get ready for Daddy's arrival (which is sooo close!!!!!!!). We try to get out as much as we can because it kills Rosalie to stay inside. The other evening we went outside so Rosalie could cruise in her car. It started to get a lil chilly out and I made her come in. She sat in her car and pouted for half an hour. This picture kills me hahaha.

That's about it.. just wanted to stop in!

Ciao!

Cruisin'

I know that I've been a total slacker for pictures lately.. so I just had to share this-

Yesterday Rosalie's buggy came that I bought her in the states. I can NOT pry her out of it. Hopefully it stays nice out this afternoon so she can take it for a ride down the street. As soon as I got it together yesterday it started raining.. go figure. It was such a pain to put together because someone wouldn't stay off it long enough for me to put it together! So tell me.. what do you think.. does she like it? haha

It has a little horn that beeps and I've heard it nonstop since I put the car together.. she was even beeping it at the dog..

I confess...

For the first time in my life.. I cut the grass. In my almost 24 years of life, I have never once cut grass. ever. Growing up I had two older brothers, so I just always did the trimming. Now, Kevin always cuts the grass and I still do the trimming and sweep off the sidewalks, ect. Well.. today I had to do it. I was slightly embarrassed that I had to ask Kevin how to start the lawn mower. (Go ahead, laugh. I allow it) But, I did it and our yard looks great! I got all the trimming done and raked and got everything swept off.. and I even managed to get all our lawn furniture out of the shed and get it all wiped down.. while my kid napped! We were up the entire night last night and instead of laying down like I REALLY wanted to, I fought through it because there's just so much here to be done. For example, instead of going to bed last night when Rosalie did, I went out in the dark and pulled weeds out of my driveway. Yeah, i'm that obsessive compulsive; and yeah, it's wearing me down.

Yesterday was an extremely frustrating day for me. Once again, it was a sleepless night. We had tons to do so I couldn't just lay around like I wanted to. First we had to go pay our internet BILLS. Yes, I had said billS with an S. One thing I love about Italy- you can go months without paying a bill and they won't shut whatever it is off lol. Well we had 150Euro in internet bills accumulated from me being in the states... which is about $220 US dollars. After getting that done, we went to get the car inspected.. which I have never done here. Once again, that's Kevin's job. I thought it would take a max of half an hour... WRONG. We sat there for TWO hours. The line of cars was ridiculous.. only ONE person was inspecting cars. Rosalie was a lil trooper though. After that we had to go to Pass and Registration.. where I just about went over the counter at the lady. I handed her all my stuff and she goes "oh. you're JUST A SPOUSE. you need a power of attorney to do your registration." I was like "You're kidding me? I have it.. but I don't carry it on me. The car is in MY name.. so I didn't think I would need my husband's permission to register it" and she goes "Yeah well you do." God what a B. I left extremely angry. We hit up the BX and I treated Rosalie to a new book and toy since she had to deal with all that crap and I got a new hair dryer because mine's starting to short out. (which i LOVE it by the way.. I went from like a $100 salon dryer, to a con air and I love the $25 con air one wayyyyy more).

This morning after skyping with daddy (I love that's how our days start now instead of skyping at 8pm), we had to head to Bricofer, an Italian.. ummm.. hardware/lawn and garden store? lol I'm not sure what it is.. it's kind of like the Italian version of Home Depot. From the week I left to go to the states and this week of being back, we've had four light bulbs blown. It's a common thing here.. we stock up on light bulbs like it's our job. I actually changed 2 right after Kevin left and then more blew and I didn't really have the time to go to Bricofer since we were getting ready to head to the states. To get light bulbs in the commissary they are 110V and WAY over priced and since they are 110V they don't last long. These bulbs last a lot longer and are only like $2, compared to the commissary's $8 price. I also scored a sprayer so that when my weed killer comes I can spray my driveway. I was so excited because the BX/shopette never have them and I looked for one before I left the states, but all I could find were pre-filled ones.

We headed to the base and finished up all the registration crap and then hit the post office. Naturally I had 6 boxes there. lol. One box included Roey's sweet new ride i bought while in the states.. it's this cute pink car buggy that I can push her down the street in. I'm excited to get it together so we can go for walks. I know she's going to love it because my nephew has a lil blue one and she found it in my brother's shed and we couldn't pry her off it! Then we hit the BX to get gas coupons and to get Kevin's mom's birthday present. Seriously, I feel like I kicked todays butt because I got everything accomplished and more than I had planned!

Time to go relax before lil Miss wakes up! CIAO!